LA TRAVIATAVerdi

Arthaus Musik108 036

Blu-ray

If I had caught this
performance live at the Graz
Opera in Austria, I would
have been quite happy;
but I cannot see why it
was particularly worthy of
recording for posterity. On
the plus side Marlis Petersen
is a very good Violetta. Her
voice lacks the tonal depth
we are used to in this role,
but she surmounts all the
technical demands it requires,
and is a remarkably vivid
vocal and physical presence.
No doubt she worked long
and hard with director Peter
Konwitschny, whose insight
helps strip away the accretions of tradition
without throwing the
baby out with the bathwater; interesting,
sometimes annoying and
not always comfortable viewing. Alas Giuseppe
Varano’s Alfredo
is vocally wayward and often painfully under the
note, and his
physical presence is hangdog, and James
Rutherford barks his way
through Germont’s music with no sense of Verdian
line. Tecwyn
Evans conducts straightforwardly.